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Ubuntu's Unity/Compiz Gets Even Slower

09-04-2012, 01:50 PM

Phoronix: Ubuntu's Unity/Compiz Gets Even Slower

Updates were recently pushed into the Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" repository for the Unity desktop and Compiz compositing window manager. Performance improvements were talked about, but still there are big problems at hand. The recent Unity/Compiz updates have caused more OpenGL slowdowns, at least for those using Intel's popular open-source driver.

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I feel very bad for Ubuntu! I like the general concept behind Unity but the way they implement stuff is just so weird and unprofessional, they just add features to it and with each single feature they lose some performance, I can guess how messy Compiz/Unity code is by now. I see the day that they will come and say "hey, we no longer use compiz" no one actually is using it except for ubuntu! I really really like to know who makes these stupid technical decisions in Canonical! He must be very ...

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In a way this kind of shows how important the community is to a project. By the large, no one ever jumped onto Unity (or Gnome 3) developer wise, users sure but not the developers that drive a project, and Compiz was all-but-officially abandoned when Gnome moved to Mutter. Because so few of the developers care about Compiz you run into a problem of "With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow"-- Canonical can't provide enough eyes on their own, and apparently they cant get enough outside help either.

Mutter is most likely in a similar boat (benchmarks, Michael?) and I can't help but look at Kwin and go "There's a project that's pushing forward with technology, there's a project developers care about." I follow Martin Graesslin's blog about once a week or so, and every time there's an announcement by him about some new feature and the feedback from the community is astounding. People CARE about Kwin. Whenever an announcement comes up for Unity/Compiz or Gnome/Mutter I only seem to hear "Performance regression incoming" or "meh, who uses it anyway?"

(disclaimer, yes I use KDE (Kubuntu/Fedora KDE/Arch). I also used to run Gnome 2 + Compiz before Ubuntu jumped to Unity, Ive used Fedora Gnome 3, and I've run E17 and Openbox on Arch, so don't just jump at "Try a lighterweight one, they're even faster-- i have used them, Kwin is still my favorite.)

Just my 2 cents.
-Eric

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I don't think people realize the thing about Compiz. They WANT to get rid of it, but can't at the moment. At the last UDS talk on Compiz/Wayland they said that very thing. They stated it's slow and outdated. When they actually go after Wayland is when it will be either dropped, or re-written to actually work properly. The need Compiz at this moment in order for Unity to work the way it does. After Wayland is introduced, things will change dramatically.

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For the last 2 years Canonical developers look from my point of view a bit to lousy.
1 guy from Linux Mint introduced ratings and comments after the release of USC.
Canonical needed 2 years in order to implement this feature even if the bunch of developers that work on USC were talking about implementing it since Linux Mint implemented it.
Now, the Chinese distro, 1 single developer made that amazing Software Center with multiple image support, no password needed if you install software from the Software Center(I don't understand why Canonical doesn't do that if they say the software is checked, in the end than why we have to wait a new major release to update our software?), rating and commenting, installing from PPAs, theming, featured software, sorting...
Canonical: 2 years since the Chinese developer released it's version - commenting and rating
1 more year - multiple image support, featured software and sorting.
The Chinese developer finished it in 3 weeks but the bunch of Canonical developers can't do even half of that in 3 YEARS?
Very lazy developers. The core developers are very good(they have good kernel developers) but these ones that take care of the applications with UI or UI stuff in general write almost awful code.
Btw, not complaining at all at the kernel developers they have. They don't contribute to upstream that's a problem but that they do a good work there is no doubt.

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Just switched from Gnome 3 to XFCE on Arch after using Gnome for over a year. Wasn't really dissattisfied with it only needed 2 extensions to make it fit my needs.
But having the old Gnome 2 feeling back without any kind of effects and a taskbar in the panel just feels right. Maybe because I grew up with it. Good to know
that it's also a fast setup for gaming. Now if only Valve would release their Steam Beta...

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Mutter is most likely in a similar boat (benchmarks, Michael?) and I can't help but look at Kwin and go "There's a project that's pushing forward with technology, there's a project developers care about." I follow Martin Graesslin's blog about once a week or so, and every time there's an announcement by him about some new feature and the feedback from the community is astounding. People CARE about Kwin. Whenever an announcement comes up for Unity/Compiz or Gnome/Mutter I only seem to hear "Performance regression incoming" or "meh, who uses it anyway?"

[...]
Just my 2 cents.
-Eric

That's about right. Kwin is getting more awesome as time passes. KDE is returning to the beauty of 3.x days.
I like Compiz but it's a project that doesn't seem to advance and about Mutter, GNOME guys only care in removing features.